Fortnite has outlasted numerous competitors in the battle royale genre in the past two years since it budded as one of the most-watched games on Twitch in 2018.
But Call of Duty: Warzone might prove to be the game’s most substantial challenger yet, with top personalities like Nickmercs hinting at a hard swap to Activision’s more realistic shooter.
On stream yesterday, Nick was talking to his chat about how he had just played for 10 hours—but that it felt a lot shorter.
“I feel like I played for an hour,” he said. “Guys, we’ve got a predicament. … man, Fortnite, huh? Fucking Fortnite, huh? What was it? Two years and some change? … I think we had a good run. Guys, I don’t know what to say.”
It might be too early to tell how seriously Nick is contemplating ditching Fortnite, but a quick look at his viewership suggests that he could potentially do just as well playing CoD.
Since Warzone was released on March 10, Nick played the new battle royale for just over 19 hours with an average of 17,213 viewers, recording a total of 329,915 hours watched. During the same timeframe, he played Fortnite for 35 hours with an average of 14,520 viewers according to Stream Hatchet data.
Both Nick’s improved viewership and his personal feelings about Warzone could be due in large part to the game’s newness, but just like he said himself, “I don’t know.”
Warzone is clearly the younger game that is attracting attention because it’s a fresh release, but depending on how long influencers like Nick stay on the CoD train, Fortnite could take a hit moving forward.
